Busy finishing Muster, so this is going to be the year’s shortest newsletter.
State of the Manuscript
I’m starting to be fairly positive on this thing: I’ve got the plan and most of the text for a ~150 page book that at least brushes at the subject matter well enough to be worth reading. It feels like something that should be revised and improved upon in the future, but for how this might be good enough to publish.
Here’s the current table of contents, with the chapters that are still unfinished in bold:
Front matter:
Introduction
The 10-minute course on how to play
Basic section:
Overview of the game
This is it
The Simulation Program
Basic Dictums
Campaign Structure
The Bumblebee Bandit
D&D and Chauvinism
Advanced section:
Reading Advice
Technical Things to do
Campaign Design Practices
Characters in Party
1st Dungeon Doctrine
Adventuring vs Downtime
Wargaming of Not-War
Referee Simulation Work (+ intuitive decisionmaking)
Dynamic Balancing
The Nihilistic Void
Rules are Simple and Crude
Creative Virtues
Short history of D&D
So I have a few chapters still to write, and I’m sure there’s still some editing to do, but it’s all in all an amount of work measured more in days than months.
Anybody interested in helping out with the last leg editorial overview is welcome to join the studio team at the Discord server (here’s an invite); I’ll try to put up a fresh manuscript in a few days. As usual, I’m not particularly interested in general language editing (that will get done, don’t worry), while I am highly interested in substantial observations: questions about things I am lacking or failing at.
Coup de Main status
Our Monday online games are fairly likely on Christmas vacation until the end of the year or so. In practice we’ll be checking in weekly in case a quorum (traditionally 3+1 people) happens, but barring any surprises, regular play will resume in January.
Tuesdays, meanwhile… I’ve been told that the face-to-face Sunndi group wants me back for next Tuesday! We’ll apparently have a couple of new players, too, so better prep something simple and fun for it.
State of the Productive Facilities
Writing, editing. I’ll need to check on how the art is coming along one of these days. Tuesday I’ll see the guys for gaming, so that’s a good time.
The big plan is to get the book ready for a digital ashcan release around the New Year, so as to keep the backers in the loop. Then in January, the last edits and a final release.